Erosion
Erosion is an attribute that can apply to some items depending on their material. The performance of an eroded weapon (including tools that can be used as weapons) or piece of armor will be degraded - weapons will have their damage decreased and armor's intrinsic AC bonus will be reduced by one for each level of erosion (in neither case affecting enchantment, and never reducing intrinsic damage or AC below zero). This means a +0 dwarvish iron helm's AC is -2, while a thoroughly rusty +1 dwarvish iron helm's AC is -1. Erosion does not affect an item's other enchantment-based effects; a thoroughly rusty +2 helm of brilliance still provides +2 to INT and WIS. The following types of erosion exist: Rust affects only items made from iron. It results from exposure to water (by potion, fountain, pool, etc.) or to a rust monster. Corrosion affects copper or iron items. Exposure to acidic environments (potions or some monsters) results in this form of damage. Burning affects any organic material or plastic, and results from e.g. fire traps. Rotting also affects any organic material and most commonly results from exposure to brown puddings. Items can suffer up to three levels of erosion, for example: rusty, very rusty, and thoroughly rusty. The types of damage do not add; rather the greater damage is used. Thus a very rusty corroded short sword has a -2 penalty rather than -3. An item can be both thoroughly rusty and thoroughly corroded, but it will never suffer more than 3 points of damage. Other erodable items Metal wands, rings, and skeleton keys can rust and corrode, but this does not affect their performance. Also, if you are polymorphed into an iron golem, rust traps will kill your monster form (even if unchanging, unless you have the half physical damage extrinsic)trap.c#line797. All iron golems suffer this fate. Similarly, a wood golem can be rotted and destroyed. Preventing and curing erosion Many objects can be protected from erosion, and any existing erosion repaired. A metal object that is so protected identifies as rustproof, and an organic or plastic object identifies as fireproof. The procedure is the same for both types: * A weapon (including tools that can be used as weapons) can be protected from erosion, and any damage repaired, by wielding it and reading a non-cursed scroll of enchant weapon while confused. * Any armor can be protected from erosion, and any damage repaired, by wearing it, removing all other armor, and reading a non-cursed scroll of enchant armor while confused. * Any armor can also be protected from erosion by wearing it, removing all other armor, and reading a ''cursed'' scroll of destroy armor while confused. This procedure does not repair existing damage. * Successfully dipping for Excalibur will remove any existing erosion on the long sword and make it rustproof. If the scroll of enchant weapon or armor is cursed, this procedure instead strips the item of any protection from erosion, and has no effect on existing erosion. No erosion event will ever affect body armor worn under a cloak, nor a shirt worn under body armor or a cloak. One might choose, then, to wear a junk cloak such as a dwarvish cloak to protect a banded mail from rust. Objects can be temporarily protected from rust or corrosion by greasing them. An event which would normally rust or corrode the item will instead have a chance of removing the grease. Also, one level of rust and/or corrosion can be removed from a weapon by dipping it into a potion of oil. The prayer boon does not erodeproof your wielded weapon, though it does repair existing damage. In addition to erode-proofing, blessed items may resist erosion, with a chance dependent on your Luckrnd.c#rnl Strategy In most cases, using scrolls of enchant armor to erode-proof armor is a waste of resources. Since erosion only affects the object's base AC, and most items don't have more than 1 or 2 base AC, scrolls are usually better spent increasing the enchantment of your gear (unless you are unable to enchant your gear safely any more and don't have enough markers to make use of blanking the surplus scrolls). Many forms of body armour grant 3 or more AC, but usually the only suits you should consider enchanting are dragon scale mail and perhaps mithril-coats, neither of which can erode. Using extra scrolls to fix erosion is an option, however. Fireproofing water walking boots will allow you to cross lava without destroying the boots. History Before NetHack 3.1.0, items did not have erosion as such; rather, damage operated by reducing the enchantment. Thus a rust monster attacked rather like a modern disenchanter, except that its attack was blocked by rustproofing rather than magic cancellation. Source code references Category:Item attributes